Tolerance and Self-Esteem in Europe

Tolerance is one of the most salient values in European civilization today. However, the rapid changes in cultural and social life, and the globalizing processes in particular, pose a serious threat and challenge to tolerance. As a result, research that aims to better understand the factors that determine the level of tolerance in modern society is increasingly important. The aim of this paper is to define the strength and direction of the association between: 1) Tolerance and individual-level factors such as global self-esteem, 2) Tolerance and country-level factors such as linguistic diversity. According to our hypothesis the connection between global self-esteem and tolerance has a positive character: people with lower self-esteem and lower level of well-being tend to be less tolerant. This is because low evaluation of others (usually members of vulnerable groups) is expected to increase one's level of global self-esteem and compensate their feelings of being a failure. We also assume that lower level of linguistic diversity lead ыto more tolerant society. To test our hypotheses, we are going to use the data from the 6th wave of the European Social Survey. Our main methodы of investigation are multilevel modeling and SEM.